Hello to all,
I have a few questions but i will try to give you a backround and hopefully will try to be as brief as possible.
My dad who is almost 86 years old (does not look over 70!) has been suffering from low blood platelets for a number of years. In the summer of 2007 while in his summer home in Greece he suffered a severe nose bleed and came back to the US in a few days. For all the years that he has had the low platelets (must be at least 9) his doctor always signed off on the bloodwork which really makes me angry now. he had a bone marrow biopsy that did not show last year that did not show small percentage of blasts (and other things i do not understand) and hematologist did not say he had to do anything. Spleen was fine. We did see a dr. specializing in ITP and that was ruled out. All other bloodcounts were fine.
Come January of 2010 he started to get elevated white counts. That was seen by his regular doctor and he still did not send him to see his hematologist. It was not until i said why is he not going to see the hematologist that his dr send him. By March they had risen to 30,000. We went to see a specialist in myelodysplastic syndrom and he was diagnosed witha low grade and there was no treatment at this point. He is now getting knee pain so we went to an orhopedist had mri's done and pet scans. Knee pain was a fracture, PET scan showed multiple lesions on tibia and fibia. Now he is getting fevers, chills and no appetite. On May 2nd he was having shortness of breath, fever, vomitting - we called the ambulance and he was admitted to the ER. After a two week stay diagnosed with diverticulitis and sepsis of blood. Had 3 types of IV antibiotics and also meds to stabablize his pressure. His two week stay really did him in. Being in bed and not moving around caused him to have trouble walking. After a month of PT he was doing better but we notice a growth on his tibia. Last week we had a bone biopsy done of that growth - it may be AML or CML or maybe something else. My dad was a very healthy man. Never took an aspirin. when he stayed at his home in Greece he was outdoors doing some "farmining" and eating a Meditarranean diet.
I am concerned since he has an advanced age, that any treatment will not be good for him. If anyone can let me know if they know what they do for this I would appreciate it. I am very angry at these doctors that do not diagnose things early enough. If this is a type of leukemia i cannot see why this could not have been found. BTW his white count is down to 16. Sorry for the long-windedness. Any advise would be appreciated.